What You Want To Hear
by PearlQ19
Summary: Oneshot set after the season four finale. JW of course... More info inside. Please RR.


**What You Want To Hear**

_A/N: I wrote this a few weeks after I'd watched the last episode of season four. I found it really cruel of the makers to end the season with the relationship between Woody and Jordan this disturbed. I just hope that things will calm down in the next season, but as usual, we'll have to wait for quite some time until season five comes to Germany..._

_This is my first Crossing Jordan fanfic ever, but if the show keeps being so inspiring, it might not be my last. Until then, please R/R..._

_Oh, and sorry if I don't get the quotes quite right. As I said, it's been a few weeks since I watched the episode, and I didn't watch the original, so this is only a back-translation of something I remember only vaguely..._

_Classification: One-shot, set after season four. J/W 'shipping, of course. Rated PG for subject matter. I'm trying to stay canon, hence the rather open ending... please don't flame me for that._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Crossing Jordan, and I'm just borrowing Mr. Tim Kring's characters for this. Let's hope that we'll soon see a similar scenario..._

_**Now for the story**_

**xxx**

If asked what he preferred when forced to choose between death and paraplegia, Woody Hoyt would almost certainly have answered death. But now that he found himself in that very situation, the choice was not as easy as it might once have seemed. It was still impossible to tell whether he would recover movement of his legs, and therefore it was not surprising that Woody was in a foul mood. It was no self-pity, rather a profoundly deep depression mingled with the suspicion that everyone who talked to him these days only did so out of pity.

Woody did not want to be pitied. But neither did he know how exactly he wanted the others to react. And therefore he blocked off everything and everyone.

_I can say what you want to hear, Woody. _

Jordan's voice still rang in his ears, and he tried to blend it out.

_I meant every word._

He knew better. Jordan Cavanaugh would never be able to say "what he wanted to hear" right to his face. It was easy to say something like that when the person the words were directed at was only half conscious and in mortal danger. He did not doubt that Jordan had meant the words the moment she'd said them, but at that time she had been afraid for him, afraid for his life. She would have said anything only to reach him and convince him that there was something worth living for, fighting for. But when he was out of danger and it was clear that he would survive, her words were only words.

And mere words were not what Woody wanted to hear, especially not if spoken out of pity. Surely Jordan was worried about him - he knew that he meant a lot to her, for whatever that was worth - but he was unable to see her.

He closed his eyes, trying to sink back into the pillows and vanish through them. If he could just dissolve into molecules, all of this would be over. No pain, no fear of being paralyzed forever.

No dark-haired beauty sitting by his bed, holding his hand, speaking words of solace and encouragement solely because she felt secure, knowing very well that she was not supposed to disturb or enrage the poor, almost crippled man he was.

Woody felt tears of rage and disappointment well in his eyes, and he angrily blinked them away. He turned his head to the window, looking at the large bouquet of daisies someone had left there - Lily, perhaps, or Bug and Nigel. They all stopped by every once in a while, but most of the time Woody pretended to be asleep.

When someone rapped faintly on the door, Woody took about two seconds to notice.

_Another visitor. Another pitiful face. Another so-called friend talking about how I'll be alright._

He could not stand it, especially not now, and so he stubbornly turned his head, closed his eyes and started to breathe flat and evenly, pretending to be fast asleep.

The door opened a few seconds later and someone stole into the room.

Woody caught a faint whiff of an odd mixture of formaldehyde, exhaust fumes and some flowery perfume, and his belly flipped a little. He would recognize her smell anywhere.

Jordan.

No, he really did not want to see her, and so he just kept pretending to be asleep, hoping she'd give up and leave again.

He heard her footsteps as she slowly approached his bed, hesitating every now and then.

Her voice, low and raspy. "Woody?"

_Breathe evenly. Don't fake a snore. Keep your mouth open, just a little._

"Woody, are you asleep?"

_Yes, I bloody am, don't you see?_

He heard her sigh. "Maybe it's better that way," she said quietly. "It makes it easier for me."

He was so surprised that he almost reacted. It made it easier for her? Made _what _easier?

The sheets rustled softly as she sat down on the edge of his bed. Something touched his hip, probably her thigh, and he suppressed the urge to move either away or closer. A muscle twitched in his face, and he was glad that he was facing away from her.

Her hand reached for his, and Woody made an effort not to go stiff or resist, because she surely would have noticed that he was not as fast asleep as he seemed.

She took his hand between hers and sat there for a while just holding it. Her hands were cool and smooth, and the touch was pleasant. Woody started to drift, but then he snapped back to reality when Jordan began to speak, her voice low and hoarse.

"Woody, I don't know how to say it. I don't even know if it makes any _sense _to say it now, with you being asleep and all, but maybe I can see it as a sort of dress rehearsal. Just to see how it _feels _to say it." She paused and softly stroked his hand with her thumb.

"You're angry and you're afraid, Woody, and I understand that. I'd be the same way if I our roles were reversed. But that's no reason to push back everyone who wants to help you. You see, Woody, we're all worried about you, but that doesn't mean that we're suddenly strangers. You say that everything we do is solely done out of pity, and that's where you're wrong. Something awful happened to you, but that doesn't give you the right to hurt us."

_Hurt you? _Had he not been "asleep," Woody would have uttered a sarcastic laugh. _Who's hurting _

_whom, Jordan?_

"And that's what you're doing, Woody," Jordan continued. "You hurt us, your friends, because you've suddenly stopped trusting us. Tell me any reason why we should suddenly start lying to you and telling you untrue things. What makes you think that pity is the only motivation that makes us think of you, or talk to you? What makes you think that I, of all persons, would do that?"

Her voice had risen on the last few words; Woody could not say whether it was anger or sadness that reverberated in her voice. She tightened her grip on his hand, holding it so fast that it almost hurt.

"Shall I tell you something, Woody?" Her voice sounded flat and raspy, and Woody suddenly understood that she was only an inch from crying. "Maybe it _is _pity that makes me come here every day and try to tell you what you want to hear. But the thing is, I'm not pitying _you. _Do you want to know why I'm here? I'm pitying _myself_. I know it's selfish and I should think of you instead of me, but I can't help it. I look at you in your hospital bed and I see that you want me out of the room, that you're pushing me away, and do you have any idea how much _that _hurts me, Woody? I can feel you slip away from me, and I can't bear it. Why is it that I have to lose the only men who ever meant anything to me in such a short time? My father left a while ago. Then Garret had to leave, and on the same day you left me, too. I'm feeling so fucking _lonely _without you. Bug and Nigel could never replace you, Woody."

She'd been stroking his hand while she had talked, and now he felt her hands wander up his arm and over his chest. The sheets rustled again as she bent over him. Her hair touched the side of his neck as she reached over to his face and stroked his cheek a few times. When she spoke again, her voice was close to his ear, and he could feel her breath.

"I miss you so much it's tearing me apart," she whisped, her voice choked. "I know it's a cliché, but I didn't know what I got till it was gone. And all I want now is to have it back. Please tell me you're not gone, Woody."

And then she really started to cry, in short, dry sobs that she tried to muffle against his chest. Her fingers clenched the fabric of his hospital nightshirt and she moved closer.

"You should know that I'm not here out of pity," she whispered, her words hard to understand between the sobs. "You should know me better, Woody."

He felt her body beside him as her head came to rest on his shoulder. She had crawled onto the hospital bed and now lay beside him, her arm around his chest. She was still crying, but her sobs were receding now.

Woody's heart was racing at top speed; he was surprised that Jordan had not noticed yet. The monitors beside his bed showed all too well that his pulse had quickened over the past few minutes.

He tried to digest everything he had just heard. What was the essence of all that? Jordan missed him. She not only missed him, she felt lonely without him. Which meant in turn that she saw something in him that her other friends could never give her.

_The only men who ever meant anything to me. _That's what she had said, and this list included Max, Garret Macy and himself. This was the closest thing to "what he wanted to hear" that Jordan had ever managed to tell him.

And even in his momentary state, cynical and disillusioned, Woody saw that Jordan wanted to be near him. And that was a very rare thing with Jordan Cavanaugh.

It became impossible for him to remain passive any longer. He was still not disposed to "wake up," but he made the only concession he could allow himself.

Still faking sleep, Woody uttered a very small noise that was half a moan and half a yawn - a noise that he'd heard very often from sleeping people - and turned around in his bed, toward Jordan. He half expected her to go stiff and withdraw, but she only snuck a little closer to him.

Woody let him other arm drop casually on her side, and to his great surprise, Jordan reached for it and repositioned it, so that she ended up lying in his arms. Her face rested in the little hollow where his shoulder met his neck, and Woody felt the softness of her breath against his skin.

_Well, Jordan, you still haven't said what I want to hear, but I think that you're heading in the right direction._

He listened to her breathing for a while until he began to drift. The last thing he noticed before his mind slipped away from him and into the deeper realms of sleep was her hand on his chest, and the last conscious thought in his mind was the recognition that she was feeling his heartbeat.

**xxxTHE ENDxx**


End file.
